New Princeton Review Law School Rankings

The Princeton Review have released their 2005 law school rankings. They stopped doing these for few years and I’m pretty sure this is their first year back.
Before the hiatus, Boston University had come in first-place for best faculty for six straight years, a fact the administration mentioned quite frequently. Unfortunately, BU has now slipped to #2.
BU also ranked highly (#4) for best career prospects. Are you kidding me? Don’t Yale, Harvard, and Stanford students have better career prospects than BU students? I guess the real question is whether students at those schools realize that they have better career prospects, and whether they care to fill out the Princeton Review survey.
Despite that most of these rankings are ridiculous, I have to admit they’re kind of fun. I’m also happy to see more ranking systems out there as US News alternatives. Each new ranking system slightly dilutes the excessive authority granted to US News. I’m still surprised that more publishers don’t try to compete with US News in the rankings market. Where are the New York Times’ rankings?
The relationship between institutions and US News amuses me too. The institutions always talk about how the rankings don’t matter, but then they emphasize them whenever they’re highly ranked. Last weekend in New Haven I saw a billboard by the freeway for a Yale Hospital with a US News cover on it. When you’re #25, the rankings are meaningless. When you’re #1, you put up a billboard next to the freeway.